Goodbye 2010. (Don’t the door hit your ass on the way out.) Roll on 2011! In this episode, a December gift knitting round up, tales of over indulgence, country walks, and sharing the joy.
This is that thing I found on the beach, and sent to my sis. You know. The THING. I have no idea what these dealies are called, but I love them.
Don’t they sort of remind you of this? (Christmas gift for my eldest son’s fiancé. She still hasn’t received it yet on account of the entire Northern hemisphere being snowed under. Apparently.)
If there’s anything better than listening to Tim Curry read A Christmas Carol, I am sure I don’t know what it is. Unless it’s Tim Curry reading Peter Pan. Or Tim Curry reading the phone book.
Gosh, there really are not that many show notes, considering how long I rambled. It’s getting late and I may have missed something. I know I can count on you to tell me.
Off to drink may wifs. Hammo Neys, knitsibs!
KniTunes were provided by and used with the permission of:
- Kate Rusby – Little Jack Frost
- A Band Called Quinn – Snowbus
- Friction Baily – Auld Lang Syne
Look what the tide brought in! Yes, I’d like to know what they’re called as well. We had the crunchy snow here in Cardiff, and it’s only just dissipated. On Christmas Eve our son sang his last midnight mass and we waited in minus eight degrees centigrade to take him home. Our bins weren’t collected from 10th December till yesterday, which is a bit much, especially given the extra rubbish people throw out over Christmas!
Love your story about the three film sock knitting Sunday. I agree it is hard work. It’s also quite hard work to sit in Costa knitting and listening to podcasts while my boy plays warhammer.
Anyway, happy new year to you and Tonia, Truman and Jasper. Hope your 2011 is beginning well.
Yay! Happy New Year!
What agreat way to start 2011!…Brenda’s back. Good luck with you
house building.
Brenda, I am so, so excited for you. Life is short, so we may as well live as we dream, right?
This was one of my favorite episodes all around. Loved the music, very anxious to see that lace cowl, and that beach sounds totally enchanting—I’m tentatively planning another trip to the UK this year, and this time I MUST get to Wales!
Tim Curry reading Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is wonderful as well. Glad you’re back on the air to ring in the new year.
I was already a knitting addict, now I’m also addicted to audiobooks thanks to you ^_^ Thank you for your podcast and all the wonderful recommendations!
Great to hear you again! Happy New Year. I’m also wild about Tim Curry, ever since Rocky Horror! The photo of the arrangement of shells would make a great watercolor painting!
It’s 8:30 am in California and I just finished listening to this New Year’s podcast. As always it provided enjoyment and the pleasure of knitting. The thought of losing the experience of listening to your wonderful voice and enthusiasm for things new and old fills me with disappointment. But nothing lasts forever and while many of us would miss your podcasts I am sure we applaud your courage to try something you love! Best wishes in 2011.
What fun to listen to the show today! There is just nothing like knitting and listening to your podcast.
I am very excited for you starting your journey with houses. A few years ago I decided to follow my heart and study music. It was the best decision I have ever made. I wish you much joy on your journey and good times in 2011.
Happy New Year Brenda!
HNY from Sydney Brenda. Good to see you back – I’ve just listened to the last five podcasts in succession and loved each one. I have two requests: 1) can you post your recipe for marmalade? 2) Please can we see a picture of Jasper?
So glad to hear you’re well again and back to the microphone. I, too, am a hopeless beachcomber. We were in Nova Scotia this summer and I found the best stick ever on the beach…it was a stick with a rock lodged in it. I was helpless to resist. We had to borrow a saw to cut it down to a size that would fit in a suitcase, but it is totally my favorite souvenir of the trip and now lives on our mantel. http://www.violentlydomestic.com/2010/09/22/grave-concerns
Also, while I’m sure you’re more than capable of doing a lined hat, the marvelous TechKnitter has a lovely little tutorial on lining knit hats on her site and it might be helpful to anyone else who may have been inspired by your idea.
OMG! Hunter! that piece of driftwood is AWESOME. I would totally have dragged that home with me.
In kind, Pam (my sis) and Adrian (my BIL), happened upon a rock, with TONS of big holes in it, when they visited the Oregon coast last summer. It was two miles down the beach, and Pam said, “OMG, LOOK AT THAT AMAZING ROCK!!!” Adrian replied, “Oh, honey. No…”
Long story short, they went back to the beach the next day, with a backpack, and they lugged that rock two miles up the beach, stopping dozens of times along the way to rest because the thing was so freakin’ heavy. They put it the rock their car, and took it back to Minnesota, and it now has pride of place in their house, where Pam uses the large holes as display space for countless little treasures.
I guess it runs in the family.
xoxo
yay, so happy to hear your voice and journey through winter paces with you! Knitting socks these days and am stunned by your 3-movie sock knitting! perhaps i shall achieve such heights some day…soon?
The house thing seems completely sane to me, and sounds like a really good time to boot! Loved your list of what characteristics the houses would have. More of that in the world, please.
Beach things – remarkably gorgeous.
Latest knitting sounds interesting, as usual.
Wishing you good things in the New Year.
Good luck with your new ventures in 2011! I totally get the rock thing – when my DH and I took our honeymoon trip to Ireland, we came back with at least 10lbs of rocks in our bags. The guys at customs said jokingly “what’s in here, rocks?” He was really surprised when we said yes!
Happy New Year, Brenda!
Thanks for another fab podcast. Your 2011 plans sound very exciting – good for you! I wish you the best of luck with everything.
Hah, so glad you like my magical stick too! When I found it, it was mostly buried in the sand. Only about 8 inches of it were showing. I tried to lift it out but couldn’t. It took The Boy and I a good five minutes of concerted digging and tugging to get it loose. The whole thing was about four and a half feet long. We got more than a few odd looks (and one comment) as we lugged it down the beach and up the stairs to our car. It went from one side of our rental car’s trunk to the other (and left more than a bit of sand behind).
I still wish I could have found a way to get the whole thing home rather than sawing it in half. Alas, between the post holiday and the hurricane, my options were limited.
I love seeing people’s reactions to it when they come over for the first time. I tend to get on much better with the people who go ‘ooooooh, awesome!’ than those who ask why I have a STICK on my mantle. Apparently all the best people are drawn to nifty stick/rocks/beach debris.
Beautiful episode, Brenda.
I especially loved your description of The Thing; in the interests of Sharing the Joy, here is a photo of you holding one of The Things when I visited last!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/felixbadanimal/5143758388/
I also loved your careful and respectful breakdown of the Peruvian hat that you sent to Chris, and I deeply admired your getting all the Xmas knitting done on time. It was also nice to listen to your description of the Miner’s Walk which I remember, and to hear of all your exciting plans for 2011!
Happy New Year! x Felix
Hello – I think your housing dreams are perfectly San (and they are much like my own, coincidentally). Best of luck and joy in your new project.
I wanted to find that book you read from can you tell me the name of the author? I can’t seem tO find it. Any hints would be greatly appreciate!!
Thanks for your wonderful podcast.
Hi Brenda!
Its so good to finally hear your voice! I truly loved the New Year podcast. As to some of the thingies above, lots of the shells came off bivalves, for example, the white one towards the bottom where the inside of the shell is facing you, from this angle appears to have come from a scallop. I think the shell under the blue sea glass is probably a mussel shell. In fact there seem to be quite a few mussel shells. I’m having trouble identifying the shell to the far left.
I’m looking forward to all of these new knitting patterns being available as well as the next podcast! Hope you have a very Happy New Year and a great selfish knitting month!
Glad to hear you are on the mend and had a great holiday.
I have a suggestion or rather a favor to ask. 🙂 I love the music you select for your podcast and was wondering if you could create a playlist of each season. I think you can do it and upload them to itunes somehow and have them connected to the podcast page. I would love that. As of now I dig through the show notes and do hunt down and purchase the selections I love. Anyway it’s just a thought and as usual, I suggest it but have no true idea of how much time that would chew up for you….
Keep on keeping on. I love hearing your voice and coming along for your musings. I’ve been with you from the start, which boggles my mind.. HOW many years?? You’ve always been professional, had entertainment and educational value…and are just fun! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Lynn in Wauwatosa, WI (Suburb of Miwaukee)
Happy 2011!
Your plans for building houses sound marvelous – I really admire people who know what they want and figure out how to get there. Very best wishes for your new endeavour! I do hope you’ll continue podcasting even as your life changes – I’m sure you’ll have a lot of interesting things to say about returning to study.
Hi Brenda.. just now finished this podcast… but wanted to let you know that I am glad you are inspired by architecture. I had emailed you to know if you were familiiar with the ecovillage near you…
My partner and I have talked a lot about buying land and going off the grid. I don’t know if you are familiar with EARTHSHIPS or EARTHBAG construction? Those are some of the most earth friendly designs out there!.. It is very alternative.. but incorporting the functions of the structure so it essentially is self sustaining I think is the future of building. Instead of building a house and tying it into the “grid”.. whether that be electric or plumbing.. Obviously.. many regulartions and attitudes would have to change.. but I think it is starting.. and you can build really beautiful structures too!
Good luck on your endeavor!!
Sorry to spam you with comments and links, but I just saw this and HAD to send you a link, as it seems to me like jewelry inspired by THE THING!
http://littleyellowbirds.blogspot.com/2011/01/dripping-with-gorgeous.html
Here is the jeweler’s own website: http://yourdarlingdixie.com/section/127311_artwork.html
I didn’t get it if your son is just visiting in the UK? That is still awesome, I know how you missed your family when you moved. I knitted a pair of socks and finished them one new years eve. Yay!
Happy new creative year to you and yours!
Hello Brenda,
I’m a regular listener and i’ve enjoyed all your podcasts.Mostly I listen while I’m at work….
As I may be the only knitting postwoman in your listenership it falls to me to explain why some days in the winter you don’t get post. Firstly, travel distruption interupts the flow of mail so the local sorting office may have little or no mail to deliver.
Secondly, local conditions affect delivery. Every day we leave the sorting office with all the mail for our round. The main reason, in winter why it might not reach its destination is that the underfoot ( or driving ) conditions are too dangerous for the postman to risk. The other reason is that it takes so long to deliver in treacherous conditions that the postman may not have time to reach all his calls on the same day.
In my experience every individual postman or woman is out there in the hardest ( slippiest, coldest, wettest, darkest) conditions, trying to deliver to every address she can possibly reach. We know how important it is to the pubilc to get all their mail before Christmas Day and try even harder in December. In my workplace we opened on Sunday and worked our days off, starting between 5am and 7am and finishing after dark.
So now you can picture me, tramping round in all the snow and ice with all the packets and letters, listening to your podcast. Thank you – you make it more fun!
Veronika
The mail has become largely superfluous, hasn’t it reall? except of course for the packages. I used to despise the mail – bills and stacks of junk. But now that we’ve gone so paperless, it seems the mail has become the source of happy things. I’m glad I lived to see that. We’re about to get a big snow in the Midwest of the US and I have a box of socks to mail off to my brother and his family – a belated Christmas gift. I have a sock machine, and without it they’d be lucky to get one pair a year let alone several. I’m eager to get it in the mail before the snow flies, and hope that it arrives in time for playing in deep snow and other childhood pleasures of winter. Hopefully our mailpeople still do the rain/sleet/dark of night thing and my socks will be covering relative’s toes by end of the coming week.
Your podcast has really lost nothing in transition. I think rather, because you have become experienced at the craft of it – you have pared it down to the essential gift you love giving and being identified with. Thanks, they are really special and I have enjoyed them for years. Often times I am sitting inside the doors of the emergency room, in the middle of the night triaging patients and during a slow period I will knit on a chemo hat or grafting sock toes and give a listen. I would have no problem subscribing to this podcast for a fee. Knock yourself out and get on it – you’ve been yakking about it for years.
As a life long knitter (okay, I started in the single digits) of simple and utilitarian objects I had little idea that such a renaissance was happening! I have dabbled in more challenging projects, but not until my mother passed away several years ago did I regret living far away all my adult life and rarely learning what she had to offer. I have found some of her 1940s – 50s vintage patterns and am considering some of them. I may even try socks. Or lace. Or both!
Thank you so much for the hard work you put into your podcasts. I love them!
Hey, I just thought about it. I think you sent the stuff from the beach to Tanya’s sister not your sister.
see ya soon….
your tale of postmen on hiatus reminds me of living in Charlotte NC. I’m from NJ so winter in the 70’s with 20′ drifts and 5′ of snowfall was a real winter. Here, if we’re lucky enough to see snow (usually it melts within 2hours) the city closes. It’s horrible and people cannot drive to begin with so throw in those few flakes and watch out!